Which language is more similar to Catalan? Occitan or Castillian?

[Dandelion]

Occitan is also recognised in Catalonia, in the Val d'Aran. They are distinct enough nowadays. I am inclined to think Catalan and Occitan are closer to one another, despite the Castilian influence on Catalan.

[Rudel]

Written Catalan and classical Oc are essentially the same language. But spoken Catalan is closer to Castilian, and it's only keep increasing as time goes by.

Occitan isn't a language, it's a family of 6 locals dialects.

Of course it's a language. It has an actual literary tradition, it had proper institutions and so on ; which is more than most languages in Europe can claim these days.
Being eccentric, having dialects and being moribund doesn't make it less of a language.

Langues D'oïl and Franco Provençal seems to have a high Germanic/Celtic influence compared to the Occitan, this is why about the Romans question that I talk

Occitan has by and large the same idiosyncrasies as French.

[Dandelion]

Occitan isn't a language, it's a family of 6 locals dialects.
Sometimes Catalan is considers as an occitan language, so it's probably the closest.

Comparable to langue d'oïl as a family I guess. However, they seem to have successfully standardised it anyway. German dialects are maybe even more diverse, and Standard High German is a product from civilisation and literacy. Every German accepts it as his/her language and knows to speak it and even in illiterate times communication wasn't that much of a problem neither.

Also French is 'polished' in that regard to only later mop up the langues d'oïl and not just one dominant oïl dialect that's unaltered. Compare French to Picard or Walloon, it's obvious which is more dialectical when placed next to French, because French transcends dialect. Standardisation is something that comes from itself through civilisation, also for French. I know you are more prone to speak of regional languages whereas we tend to speak of dialects more often. I think the actual truth is more in the middle.

[BuffAndRuff]

[Rudel]

Comparable to langue d'oïl as a family I guess.

There's not really a langue d'oïl family. It's just French, and its dialects ; if you assume the fact that French has its roots in the unifying force across all dialects in the Middle Ages, and not a single dialect.

Oc's a bit different in that it originally had a single dialect becoming the norm (Limousin) with few dialectal accommodations, but it later on exploded in its written form because there was no unifying factor in either politics or literature anymore. And now whatever's left is a mess.

[Oddone]

Occitan.

Is there a great difference between written and spoken Catalan?

For an Italian I think it's easier to understand Catalan than Castillan.

[Dandelion]

There's not really a langue d'oïl family. It's just French, and its dialects ; if you assume the fact that French has its roots in the unifying force across all dialects in the Middle Ages, and not a single dialect.

Oc's a bit different in that it originally had a single dialect becoming the norm (Limousin) with few dialectal accommodations, but it later on exploded in its written form because there was no unifying factor in either politics or literature anymore. And now whatever's left is a mess.

What I also think is the case. Drive toward French unification existed since the Middle Ages. It's just obvious. Yet linguists often treat the speech of peasants as all defining. That being said, through mass education and literacy peasants do put their stamp on a language through varying degree. In Dutch for instance, 'je/jij' became official standard tongue for the second person singular pronoun which actually is just Hollandic, but before the common population enjoyed education the upper class spoke a far less dumbed down version of the language. The German language for all of its worth survived such dumbing down effect, partly because it's not just spoken in a far more diverse area linguistically and also not just High German ones like Bavaria and Austria (which could potentially dumb down German were they the only ones or the most dominant ones). This is off topic of course.

As for Oc having become a linguistic mess toward its end. That's also due to the fact many Occitan speakers were happy to accept French as their language or at least valued French statehood as the most important. Or maybe not, for there does exist the term Vergonha for result of people having forgotten Occitan. However I doubt that was ever a majority stance in Southern France anyway. Most people are just happy to accept the legacy of Occitan as you clearly do yourself. It's not that different from French anyway and being an armchair historian/lover of literature makes you still very able to appreciate it from your position.
Low Germans neither mourn having switched to High German (even though Occitan was a cultural language with a great legacy whereas Low German just a trade language).

[Rudel]

The German language for all of its worth survived such dumbing down effect, partly because it's not just spoken in a far more diverse area linguistically and also not just High German ones like Bavaria and Austria (which could potentially dumb down German were they the only ones or the most dominant ones). This is off topic of course.

Well, German's somewhat like Italian : at some point they just picked up the one dialect/norm that was most popular and ran away with it. Truly the behavior of traders.

That's also due to the fact many Occitan speakers were happy to accept French as their language or at least valued French statehood as the most important.

Not really. During the XIXth c., when there was a desire to rekindle the flame (at a time French still had to be completely overwhelming), writers and grammarians had to face the fact that Oc had broken into dialects, with some of them having quite strong features that couldn't be melded into a single norm easily, and most of them having very strong provincial identities.
At the time the prospect of France balkanizing because of petty regional factionalism was really outlandish, more so than today, so there was a certain amount of goodwill towards folklore, rural traditions and dialects as long as it didn't interfere with the national agenda.

Or maybe not, for there does exist the term Vergonha for result of people having forgotten Occitan.

That's 1960s/70s leftism. It's not really a widespread notion beyond certain circles and areas.

Most people are just happy to accept the legacy of Occitan as you clearly do yourself.

Frankly, it's getting complicated. Between regionalists, leftists with an anti-national agenda, europeans, identitaires and the regular folk stuck in between it's getting really messy.

[Oddone]

Occitan - Midi-Pyrénées

[Óttar]

I am not threatened by dialect leveling into a standard language. One of the things holding back the expansion of Irish Gaelic is the refusal of the regional dialects to conform to a standard. I would even go so far as to say that Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx Gaelic should all conform to a single standard Gaelic tongue.